Contracts
I don't know how rampant a problem this is across America, but it has been a problem here in Minnesota.
The Minneapolis School Board has chosen its candidate for the next Superintendent of Schools, Thandiwe Peebles. Now the school board is in the process of negotiating her contract, which will likely pay her over $160,000 a year.
Minneapolis attorney Marshall H. Tanick has a piece in today's Star Tribune about the contract and what the school board should do to strengthen the contract.
Tanick is upset, rightfully, that contracts are not written to require an iota of loyalty on the part of the superintendant, but do require the school board to be loyal by providing payment, a car, a vacation policy, etc.
Previous superintendents in Minneapolis have left town before the end of their contract term, often with healthy package of unused vacation and sick time, and a pension. Then a new candidate search is started. And Minneapolis only looks for national candidates it seems. Nobody local is good enough.
Taxpayers in Minneapolis -- heck, all of Minnesota -- are left to pay for all this. The school board needs to remove the revolving door from the Superintendent's office, and get someone here who truly has a vision, a long term vision, for these schools instead of a candidate who views Minneapolis as a stop on the road to someplace bigger.